Pentax will not crack the pro market without the rental back-up and proper raw tethering software. Maybe they are only worried about the domestic market and amateur/landscape photographers as there's more sales there anyway?I wonder about Sinar too, here in the uk their presence is minimal, you never see an advert for them and nobody seems to use them. The importer is a print supplies company with little info and no prices, maybe they are a bigger player in mainland Europe?

Define the pro market. Everywhere I seem to look studios are closing due to Mum and Dad buying a Nex 7 and being told the cameras sold in supermarkets give professional result which compared to 10 years ago they do.And they can take as many as they like too. For free.

Anything studio is on it's backside other than high end commercial stuff of which I imagine will be tough nut to crack, prying the RZ's and the Hasselblads out of users hands.

London Based advertising/design/fashion full time photographers. not wedding/social/art part timers or provincial high st portraiture.i know the former, not much experience of the latter.

There are no pros in New York, Paris, Berlin? The putdown reference to provincial high school portraiture typifies the smug and condescending attitude of some MFDB proponents that drives the MFDB vs 35 mm flame wars. Advertising/design/fashion photography IMHO is not art but commercialism. What about landscape and nature photography? Much of this does not take place in London.

Bill, slow down; it's no putdown at all, just a commonly-held view of what's professional, and that's about it. Of course there are pros in every major city, but you can't expect any poster to feel obliged to enumerate them all when simply expressing a point of view. For what it's worth, there's more 'art' to be found in fashion and advertising photography than hangs on many gallery walls: in fact, there's even a trend to trawl the fashion world if only to find some photographic art to hang. Commercial only means it's done for money; what did you think Da Vinci did, Vincent Van G. tried to do: it was ever about earning your bread with what you loved to do. Failure to achieve that end doesn't bestow the gift of the work being art - usually the very opposite. Have a look at some of the top fashion snapper's sites whilst keeping your mind and heart open; you could begin to see 'commercial' with a fresh eye.

For what it's worth, my personal take is that landscape and small-town photography would have a hard time trying to touch 'art' if only because of its natural market. It takes a lot of different talents to create a truly wonderful shot of people. Neither does it have anything much to do with camera format. As I've said often, great landscape shots, and there are indeed many, owe more to God than to Man. With or without hand.

If my previous post on the other page had been read first before jumping to conclusions you would have noticed that I mentioned other types of photography and then said that I was commenting on London as this is where I work/reside, I don't know about the European or regional market which is why I asked about Sinar (in Europe).Plenty of people here like to opine on photography they have no experience of, maybe I should have.

I'm not really sure about Pentax long time engagement in MF. I guess that they will make and sell P645D as long as it earns them money, but I'm not sure they will make really offensive development and restart manufacture of a lot of lenses.

Pentax will not crack the pro market without the rental back-up and proper raw tethering software. Maybe they are only worried about the domestic market and amateur/landscape photographers as there's more sales there anyway?I wonder about Sinar too, here in the uk their presence is minimal, you never see an advert for them and nobody seems to use them. The importer is a print supplies company with little info and no prices, maybe they are a bigger player in mainland Europe?

As I've said often, great landscape shots, and there are indeed many, owe more to God than to Man. Rob C

More than great fashion/glamour etc shots owe to God as the creator of the model (or to the model, if you don't want to credit a creator)? Genuine question, BTW, I am not having a go at what you say about landscape.

More than great fashion/glamour etc shots owe to God as the creator of the model (or to the model, if you don't want to credit a creator)? Genuine question, BTW, I am not having a go at what you say about landscape.

Can't compare: the photographer working with a model is creating something in tandem with her; they make something happen that does not really exist in life. That this is so can be seen if you know any of those girls. In reality, they can even be downright unattractive but, in a photograph, they are given another beautiful dimension that comes from that collaboration. This means that the act of working together is the act of creation. The landscape shooter can't do that: he has to wait for whatever God serves up.

The 'fashion' shooter and his girl can do it anywhere, anytime. Doesn't that tell you something?

As for having a go - no, I don't believe that you are. It's just a matter of thinking about it more deeply and not adopting a defensive stance for a specific, and probably personal genre.

Making a good photograph, regardless of subject . . . a hand, a tree, a mountain or even Kate Moss is damn difficult.

Depending on your belief system, producing a great photograph is either dumb luck or divine intervention.

If your so lucky to have made a great photograph you'll know it because it will be the only time in your life as a photographer that you honestly will not care what anyone thinks.

What camera you use . . . just listen to yourself not anyone else - negative or positive because both opinions usually are wrong, the negative opinion the least valid of all.

IMO

BC

There is no rule or reason when it comes to the arts.

Personally I don't find it's hard to take good pictures. Early on when I was new at this game I had the fortune of shooting in the studio next door to two a couple of the greats while renting in a Studio in the big multi studio outfits in Paris and Milan. Helmut Newton and Peter Lindbergh.What I noticed is that both looked like what they were doing was effortless and came totally natural to them... both shooting with modest equipment by the way...I expressed my respect for their work and asked a word of advice. Both said one thing in common. Don't drive yourself nuts. Shoot whatcomes natural to you and is effortless. You can never be good at something it it takes you too much effort. They also both made the musical instrument analogy.The both said ask a great musician what they do most of the time.... the answer will be play, play, play and practice.... the emphasis is on the work PLAY as in enjoy.

You need to find the instrument you prefer to play, but it is only an instrument.

Luck has it's part, the trick though is to play, play, play.... practice practice practice and be ready to take luck by it's hand as it tends to show up more often this way.

There is a wonderful series on the UK guardian website called My best Shot:

When it comes to the tools of the trade choose what you like, but after listening to both sides of the story and avoiding salesmen and hype.Descent is often where more is to be found. At times confirming your thoughts even when they are different.

A great photograph IMO is when you take it and print it just the way it is. If you have to "work a file deep" it becomes another art form.

Yesterday I saw a book of fantastic landscape. Not one of the images looked "processed" colors were not the typical over saturation and detail was not these hyper detailedimages we see so much of. Natural colors natural depth. No crushed blacks and boosted colors. Haze was left where it belongs. Brilliant work.

So much of what we see today is such a process that it's bordering on illustration rather than photography.

I find it rather ironic that so much of that the MF companies show as examples what their cameras do are so heavily manipulated that they really have littleto do with the camera. The best picture Phase has is a wonderful portrait of a young girl by Peter Eastway with no makeup, simple lighting, no "work the file deep" post and it looks simply divine... but it's buried somewhere in their downloads. http://www.phaseone.com/en/Downloads/Sample-Images.aspx, (but it looks better in C06)

The Ellen shot reminds me of Sarah Moon and Cacharel, and if you look at the Barry Lategan site, you'll see a triple portrait behind his head at one stage in a video, which, again, is either a Moon shot or he and she have amazingly similar ideas...

The Bardot image with the ciggie is pretty good, to say the least. One of the best pics of her that I can remember was by Brian Duffy, from either the same movie or Shalako, I can't remember which. Colour, and a period dress.

Pentax is a venerable name and the older takumars were lovely, the auto focus on the 645 was pretty good.

David LaChappell used their film camera for years and most people I know that used on loved them.

I like the fact the Pentax 645 digital has a decent lcd and produces an in-camera jpeg. The buffer needs to be larger.

If the Pentax had a broader offering of new lenses I'd also think about it, especially if they had something in the 100 to 110 mm range that was fast, at least 2.8.

The do make a 90 which is close and they make an excellent 55mm which is a lens I use often with my Contax.

I also have an adapter for the contax and sometimes use the pentax 6x7 105mm 2.4.

It's a pretty lens with a smooth wrap to it.

If the Pentax had a strong and robust software suite, one that tethered and would go wirelessly to an Ipad I'd think about it because I do think that ex-kodak 40 mpx sensor is good.

I don't know how other people work, but in a professional environment I must have fast, robust tethering and since everyone has an Ipad, not being able to send a file that closely resembles the final look around the room is a liability.

I wish them well and hope the system evolves but right now Pentax isn't saying much and there is not much news about what's coming, so for professional use it's somewhat of a non starter for me.

I've known two people to buy them, both somewhat happy with the purchase. One bought because of the lcd which at the time was as good or better than a lot of mfd cameras (at the time).

Another due to price and the fact this person rarely tethers.

Anyway.

I look at expensive (anything hovering around 10 grand or more) cameras as an investment. Not a sell them tomorrow for a profit investment, but use them until the paint wears off investment.

Because of this, you want some kind of assurance that the line will continue.

If the Pentax had a strong and robust software suite, one that tethered and would go wirelessly to an Ipad I'd think about it because I do think that ex-kodak 40 mpx sensor is good.

I don't know how other people work, but in a professional environment I must have fast, robust tethering and since everyone has an Ipad, not being able to send a file that closely resembles the final look around the room is a liability.

The Pentax 645D has had tethering for some time now. Simple solid software independent of your RAW processor. Point any RAW processor that can read Pentax raw and your set. You can setup lightroom to script process incoming files to preview the final look and set up the second monitor wirelessly on an iPad or better still a Windows tablet PC.

As far as wireless goes ... it's not rocket science to send images or clone a desktop onto iPads in the studio. Plenty of apps available.The Pentax can also be wirelessly tethered using and Eye-Fi card. Makes working on location so much easier and it can do so in direct mode toowithout the need of a Wi-Fi router. What is also better is that the camera has two memory cards so you get in camera redundancy.With the Eye-Fi you can also work fast by wirelessly sending out just the jpegs and doing your preview processing on the jpegs.

Then if you consider the pricing you can get more than two Pentax 645D cameras for the price of a single Phase IQ140.Redundancy is very important for professional use.

Also I wonder if Pentax can came out with a hasselblad H adapter like Leica did. That would be an interesting move.